


The Frozen Man

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1905603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every now and then, he remembers just how much time has passed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Frozen Man

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2014 July Watson’s Woes Prompt #5: [this image](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-czHSKPngkEs/U2NftDopJyI/AAAAAAAAA6I/KHOC0O5Fqgg/s1600/8facd12237b04345730b926b9cfcb896.jpg). The title is from the James Taylor song of the same name.

When Holmes asked me to take him to Minstead I understood why, once I had scanned the Common Era calendar dates that corresponded to the way he had marked time. I know the importance humans place upon anniversaries.

Minstead had been a small village at the turn of the 20th century, and its location amidst the New Forest National Park had ensured that it would remain unurbanised. Minstead’s sole churchyard received more wild ponies than humans as visitors (the creatures free to move about the parkland without hindrance, even onto ground humans regarded as holy).

Holmes was calm and silent before the twin stones engraved with the names of both his renowned human friend and that friend’s third spouse, the dates of their deaths centuries ago. He remained still and level as we walked past the public house and along one of few streets that held a few old houses, was silent as we walked a beaten dirt path away from pavement and through the New Forest National Park.

But it was the sight of a weather-beaten upright piano, transfixed through the centre by a full-sized and venerable willow tree, that caused my human companion to collapse (would have collapsed, I should say, had I not reacted with my series’ acclaimed promptness and was in place to catch him). Every sensor I had that contacted him registered his tremble.

“Forgotten,” he gasped, speaking for the first time in hours, and shaking. “I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind.”

It had not been the sight of Watson’s grave – the grave of a man who had led a very long and happy life, and who had succumbed peacefully to pneumonia in the middle of his 87th year – but that strong old willow that had triggered this expression of grief and loss, and perhaps caused Holmes to truly feel how much time had passed since he had been revived in this current century.

Holmes’ own Sussex cottage had been preserved as a museum, as had 221b Baker Street in London. However, the Minstead cottage that had belonged to Dr. John Watson and his wife Jean in their last years had not; unmentioned in tale written or filmed, the old house had clearly gone the way of many such an old building in a rural area. When empty it had become vacant, then neglected, then ramshackle, then dilapidated, and finally utterly vanished into the mould around it like a deceased biological entity. The sole remnant of his friend’s final home was a piano the widowed Jean Watson had played for the last time 208 years ago.

Programmed as I am with much of the original Dr. John Watson’s personality, I also comprehend that in matters of permanent loss those of a mechanical composition can provide little to no relief to biological constructs, save by preventing harm. I therefore remained silent. After that passage from the Psalms, so did he. We returned to Baker Street in that same silence, which persisted for the next two days. (We were not disturbed; I blocked all incoming correspondence from Lestrade and the rest of Scotland Yard.)

“Watson,” he said, 70 hours and forty-two minutes after his words before the willow-wounded piano.

“Yes, Holmes.” I felt my circuits engage and come to full functionality.

“The next time I die,” he said, face unsmiling. “See that my remains are cremated.”

I am no flesh-and-blood human physician-soldier turned companion of the greatest detective of the nineteenth and early twentieth century – but the process by which I instantly rearranged priorities for all other humans’ orders to come second before this command might have seemed a familiar one to that long-dead man. “I will attend to the matter myself, Holmes.”

And for the first time in 83 hours, he faced me with a thin smile on his face. “I have … appreciated your assistance, and your silence, during this past expedition. In your own right, Watson, you are a good friend.”

Irrational that my circuits seemed to function that much more efficiently, from a few words.

He exhaled, harder than was necessary. “In the meantime, I have a second life to live.”

“Understood,” I replied, and removed Lestrade’s transmission block.


End file.
